Und schon ist wieder Advent / Advent again

Seit gestern abend hängt schon der Adventskalender (oben Schächtelchen fürs Kind, unten Briefumschläge  mit Swap-AMCs für die Mutter), weil ich mir für dieses Jahr vorgenommen habe, diese Zeit zwischen dem 1. Advent und dem 6. Januar zu entschleunigen. Ich möchte mich wieder auf Weihnachten freuen können und nicht mehr jammern, weil es mal wieder viel zu schnell über mich hereinbricht. Geschenketechnisch bin ich dieses Jahr (wie jedes Jahr übrigens) schon längst fertig; es fehlt mir nur noch ein Geschenk für meinen Vater (eigentlich zwei, denn er hat zu allem Elend auch  noch im Dezember Geburtstag).

Yesterday evening I put up the advent calendar (little boxes for the kid, 24 envelopes with swap AMCs for me). It´s a first step towards my goal to take the stress out of the holiday season. I want to look forward to Christmas, not be frightened by it approaching much too fast). I have got all the presents I need, except for my dad, and for him, I need two, since his birthday is in December.

 

 

Der erste Adventssonntag brachte herrliches Wetter bei knackigen Temperaturen und 20 cm Pulverschnee. Wunderschöne Spaziergänge mit viel Spaß! Unser spanischer Hund hat sich überraschend schnell akklimatisiert und keinerlei Probleme damit, wenn ihm beim Graben nach  Mäusen das ganze Gesicht zufriert.

This first advent sunday came with great weather, low temperature and 20 cm of powder snow. Fantastic walks with lots of fun. Our Spanish dog has accomodated really fast, and it is  no problem for him at all when his whole face becomes frozen while digging for mice.

 Nach dem zweiten Spaziergang  waren die Wuffel so platt, dass wir guten Gewissens unseren Dienst beim Weihnachtsmarkt antreten konnten. Die Klasse des Kindes hatte einen Stand, um Geld fürs Schullandheim zu verdienen, und natürlich durften sich da auch die Mütter einbringen. Große Freude herrschte bei den Kindern natürlich, als dieser Stand den 1. Preis als schönster Stand des Weihnachtsmarktes gewann und zusätzliche 150 Euronen in die Klassenkasse gespült wurden.

After our second hike the dogs were so tired that we didn´t have to feel bad about leaving them alone on a sunday. We had to work at the kid´s class´ stall at the Christmas market. The things sold there will help to finance a school trip, and so the youngsters were especially happy to get the first prize for the most beautiful stall of the whole market (which put an extra 150 € into their account).

 

Blogger´s Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

 Amy´s Creative Site is once again hosting a really cool event, the Blogger´s Quilt Festival.


The quilt I want to share today is a scrappy, of course, completely made from stash, in a wild mixture of store-bought and home-died fabrics. It started out as a BOM, but after three months, when I still hadn´t figured out what I could do with the intended size I decided not to  do the original 100 blocks but only 48. I also decided to add a border, or maybe two. If you look closely there is one border on the right side, and the other three sides got two borders. With the all-around border I had ample space for my lasting love affair with appliqué. Everything was cut without template, making use of all the green scraps floating around. And then, a long break. How to quilt that thing? I finally decided on a dramatic feather, a fern at the bottom, right next to the appliqué fern fronds (tribute to the provider of the actual Twiddletails Geese in the Forest BOM). The Flying Geese of the 48 blocks were quilted with straight planty things in two different designs. Finally I pebble-quilted everything that seemed to cry out for it. The binding was done in red scraps.  Oh, before quilting, I added circles and spirals, big-stitched with pearl cotton, on an additional layer of batting. The final touch were red bubbles, left over from my Spring Festival entry and picking up again the circles and spirals theme. Again, all this was done without templates or tracing.
What did I learn? Don´t do appliqué as the last step on a quilt because it isn´t fun! With all the batting and the back you just can´t crunch enough material into your hand to needle-turn in a comfortable way. 
The quilt was finished in time for a programme at the Black Forest Quilters Guild, called First Quilt and Last Quilt, but I had to cancel because my daughter got shingles. So, this is its first public appearance. I hope you like it!
Thanks to Amy for this great event.